ABSTRACT
There has long been confusion about whether the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement directed against Israel is fundamentally antisemitic, even though its ultimate goal is to eliminate the Jewish state. In 2005 the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union published a “working definition” of antisemitism. In 2016 the Berlin-based International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance issued a slightly modified version, which has since been adopted by a considerable number of countries and organizations. As Bernard Harrison has helped us understand, it is important to recognize that antisemitism as it is manifested in contemporary anti-Zionism and the BDS movement does not, for the most part, represent organized hatred of Jews as individuals. Butler is among those who have deflected attention from the core BDS agenda by charging that opponents of BDS accuse all who criticize Israeli government policy of being antisemites.
